Amazon Prime Day: Small e-commerce sellers look to recover from Covid impact, accelerate growth

68 per cent participating small sellers are from metros while 32 per cent are from non-metros.

Technology for MSMEs: Small businesses participating in the two-day Prime Day sale event by Amazon – first such mega event post lockdown – are expecting to recover from the impact Covid had on their businesses in the past few months. “We worked with Nielsen to understand what our sellers want. The study shows how Indian sellers are looking forward to Prime Day to revive their business,” tweeted Amazon India country head Amit Agarwal on Thursday. Amazon, which has more than 6 lakh small and medium sellers on its marketplace, is having 43 per cent sellers participating in Prime Day sale looking to recover their business from recent challenges, according to a survey report by the e-commerce company and Nielsen. 22 per cent are expecting to speed up their business growth while another 22 per cent are eyeing new customers.

“We take this responsibility seriously and remain committed to digitize MSMEs and empower them to serve customers online,” Agarwal said. According to the survey carried out in 14 cities from July 24 to July 30, 77 per cent small sellers are participating in the event for the first time and 68 per cent sellers are launching new products during the two-day event. Moreover, 75 per cent sellers are expanding their product selection. In terms of the geographical base, 68 per cent participating small sellers are from metros while 32 per cent are from non-metros.

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Importantly, 2020 Prime Day in India is held for the first time before the US where it is usually organized in mid-July. According to data from RedSeer, the monthly GMV (annualized) of Amazon and Flipkart-led e-commerce sector in India crossed the pre-Covid level of around $30 billion during January this year to $36.5 billion in June itself. The share of e-commerce’s monthly GMV was 40 per cent of consumer internet sector’s around $75 billion in January, which had declined to 35 per cent of sector’s $10 billion GMV in April but scaled back to 73 per cent in June 2020.